Treehouse built, comic books written, children grown up—whoa, I just got dizzy.
The meat of this latest blog is a couple weeks old, I wrote a draft and got swamped by life soon after. Now I’m finishing it at the hospital during a slow night, but let’s pretend I’m still sitting in a treehouse…
This morning I write to you from our treehouse. Keen readers of this occasional blog will recall that, in addition to slowly constructing a comic book series, over the last three years I have been slowly constructing a treehouse, together with my son Ezra and assorted cousins in our extended family’s shared spot in Vermont, referred to here as “the Hill”. When we started the project during Covid in 2022 it was 200 feet from the family’s shared chalet style house, the beloved “New Cabin”. I’ve nicknamed it Falling Cousins, a nod to its cantilevered echos of Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water. We had no idea that 18 months after starting the treehouse the New Cabin would burn down, leaving this humble structure to carry on alone. While I’m still not much of a carpenter, we have learned a lot, we’ve built a solid platform, and so far it’s holding up well. In fact, I’m not sure it needs me anymore…
This week I built out a frame for a shed style roof, but we’ve had second thoughts about roofing the thing, so for now the treehouse is fairly complete. We even hosted a proof of concept movie night in it, projecting the first hour of Moonrise Kingdom before the portable battery pack gave out. My default status of “getting some work done on the treehouse” is kinda done. On the final day of my week here, I’ve got nothing to do but sit in it, look out on the lovely pond, listen to the birds, breathe in the wet woods after a soaking rain, and maybe write. But what to write?
I’ve been working on this story so long it didn’t occur to me it could ever be done. Being without it could feel a little…scary?
For as long as I can remember, summer Vermont time, one to three weeks per year, has been split between script writing, family outings, repairs/disaster mitigation, beer drinking, communal meals, pond swimming, wandering, and, in recent years, tree housing. This week Ethel, Virginia and I are here with lots of family for a yearly gathering called “Grammy Camp.” Usually I’m up early trying to get some hours of writing in before the activities ramp up and my thoughts scatter. But this week I haven’t tried to write a thing until today, and happily so.
What changed? One big thing: all my scripts are written and out of my hands! Dallas #5-6 and Trinity Project #5-6 are written and with my editor, Clair Napier, for review. There are little things I can do, but barring massive problems from Claire the story is done, and soon it will be over to the artists to make the pages. My default status of “trying to get some writing done” is kinda…done. I’ve been working on this story so long it didn’t occur to me it could ever be finished. Being without it could feel a little…scary?
Writing By the Time I Get to Dallas has been a mental “home” for me since 2013, a place my brain is always trying to get to, a safe space, but a place that needs upkeep, improvement, love. And flipping the thinking, the Dallas project is also my offspring, I’ve been rearing it, sheltering it, and getting it ready to leave the nest. Technically it’s a teenager, its first sentence written in 2011.
Our daughter Virginia is entering her junior year of college, while Ezra enters junior year of high school, and he’s pretty independent. On occasional Friday nights Ethel and I find ourselves on our own. We walk to a restaurant without asking for consensus, we sit at the bar, look at each other, exhale, and say “hi, I remember you—I like you!” We even had a week to ourselves in July, and when we didn’t feel like cooking dinner, we didn’t, we just had beer and ice cream. We realized self neglect can be a form of self care. Try it if you get the chance.
Writing By the Time I Get to Dallas has been a mental “home” for me for a long time, a place since 2013 my brain is always trying to get to, a safe space, but a place that needs upkeep, improvement, love.
So I’m feeling some pre-empty nesting vibes for both my family and some of my projects. Dallas isn’t out of the house yet: there is still a huge amount of work left to complete this comic story, crowdfund the printing, and get the books into the world. How I plan to do all that will be the subject of future blogs, don’t you worry. And maybe we do want that treehouse roof after all. And of course the children remain wonderful works in progress. But I’m starting to catch a glimpse of what life might be like as an empty nester, in more ways the one, or at least until the next rambunctious idea takes hold.
Before we launch we prelaunch!
Click here to make sure you get all the updates between now and my next Kickstarter Campaign for By the Time I Get to Dallas #5-6: SERIES FINALE!
https://pitdocpress.com/
Before we prelaunch we talk about prelaunching!
I guested on one of my favorite podcasts, Comixlaunch, to talk about coming back to Kickstarter after time away. Thank you to Tyler James for having me!
Click above to watch me wiggle in my chair. Below it is in podcast format:
http://www.comixlaunch.com/
Next time I’ll share progress on By the Time I Get to Dallas #5 art!! Let’s go!
As always, thank you for your support and encouragement!
Colin
Colin Devonshire
Colin is an emergency physician in Boston, Massachusetts. The seeds of his comics project were sown when he took a sabbatical from the ER for creative writing. His creative non-fiction has been published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.